Windows XP WIndows Messenger

By default, Microsoft has configured
on XP the
"Windows Messenger" to be started in the
taskbar

The idea of the Messenger is good
: Create once an account with Microsoft.
On other participating Websites, you can use then the same
username and password,
avoiding to have to remember all these different Usernames for
the websites, where you
need to sign in.

However, many people see this as an attempt of Microsoft to
control the Internet, so we will
have to see on how many websites will participate to use unified
Usernames and passwords.

For proper working of Windows XP and for regular
"surfing" on the Internet,
it is not required to sign up.

If you decided not to use the
"Windows Messenger" , there are several possibilities
to avoid the
start-up of the "Windows Messenger" in the taskbar :

1) avoid the startup for a single userYou need to edit the
Windows Registry , using REGEDIT :
locate the key :
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
and delete the key "MSMSGS", then the Messenger will
not start up for this user.
When users logon, the Messenger will still start up.